Next week marks the 11th anniversary of Victory Road. It’s certainly been a long journey of friendships, antagonisms, and programming adventures.

It is with a wave of emotions that I must finally retire Victory Road. I have a great amount of nostalgia for this place through my final high school years, all of college, and the first few years in the workforce.

Timeline

For me, this site was originally about taking a shot at running a community. I originally lurked around GameFAQs and enjoyed the prospect of a gaming-oriented forum. I gravitated towards a small board oriented around the development of a Wonder Mail generator for the original Pokémon Mystery Dungeon titles. In November 2006, I decided to spin up a forum of my own on the same service, but after a single user joined (Yoshi648) I let it rot. When the Mario Paint Composer bug bit, I joined the budding Mario Paint Hangout and built a few friendships. I quickly became an administrator, which made me yearn for running my own forum (again).

In the summer of 2008, I reinstated my own forum (creatively, the “Buizel.Net Forums”), invited a few folks, and promoted a few staff members. Within a few months, we had a solid community of a couple dozen members before I moved the Buizel.Net Forums over to a self-hosted phpBB installation. It wasn’t long until the activity really began to pick up as people wanted a smaller, looser forum to discuss Pokémon, healthy debates, and whatever else folks had on their mind. I had also started streaming video games, mostly Pokémon and Mario stuff.

By the following summer, I had renamed the site and forum to “Floatzel.Net,” and by the end of the 2009 had changed out the software to vBulletin and renamed the site “Victory Road.” We were also having tournaments for the fourth generation Pokémon games, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Kart Wii almost every month. This was when the site got a proper chat, a flaky virtual adoption board, and a topsites listing. I’d also started working on the Victorydex project. Through the midst of all this, I had to try out different VPS hosting providers who oversold their systems until I got a dedicated server from HiVelocity.

Several staff members from the former PokéZam had helped with building projects, with FreezeWarp joining the administration and development staff. Within time, he took over development of the Victorydex, rebuilt the chat system, and made significant progress towards making a full-fledged game out of the idea of adoptions (which he named VictoryBattles). Another ‘Zam staffer, Shadow, brought us the Victory Road Gym League, where the best battlers of the forum could become Gym Leaders and give out badges to the victors. Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver hype was in full swing, and the users kept coming to trade and battle. With that activity also came some spammers and other users who kept the moderators on their toes. As Pokémon Black and White took over my full attention, much of the maintenance work turned to the moderators, but overall the community remained stable.

Over the next several years, we even started our own Minecraft server, which proved to be a constant headache as plugins updated at different paces while various bugs caused memory leaks and server crashes. On top of that, we had the arcade where you could play simple Flash games and record your high scores, the Pokékaki where you could draw whatever you pleased, and the Victory Road Adoption Center as the adoption-centric replacement for VictoryBattles.

As games like Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Pokémon X and Y came out in 2013, I could tell that interest in the forum was waning. The weekly user count began dwindling into 2014. I had begun to plan for Victory Road’s closure to coincide with my graduation from college and transition into a new part of my life, but I had wanted to wait until I had finished that new site I had always discussed (“VGVids”) before doing so. Some of the site features fell into disarray and members either left or loss interest in running things like the Gym League. When the cost of the server got to be too expensive for the load, KingOfKYA hooked me up with a VPS at ServerPoint.

The VGVids project was renamed to Lycanroc.Net and completed in late 2016. Stubbornness led to me delaying the closure until the end of 2017. The few remaining loyal users kept me company through the final years.

Roadmap

Please see the following dates for changes that should be expected in the near future.

December 1, 2017
Logging in on VRAC and the Pokékaki will be disabled.

January 1, 2018
The Pokékaki and VRAC will be fully closed and will no longer be online. Be sure to save any pictures you want to keep by this date. In addition, the remaining webpages on Floatzel.Net will be taken down.

January 8, 2018
Most content-creation features on Victory Road will be disabled. This includes: posting, editing, deleting, uploading attachments, uploading album photos, and sending private messages.

February 1, 2018
Logging in will be disabled. Also, large attachments will be deleted. Be sure to download any large files that you want to keep by this date.

Special Thanks

I’d like to give a special shout-out to the following members:

Yoshi648 – Running this place would’ve been impossible without him keeping constant watch on spammers and managing the staff.

KingOfKYA – He taught me a lot of what I know now about system administration, laid the foundation of my PHP and MySQL knowledge, and clued me into best practices before I could falter.

FreezeWarp – This guy developed many website products that were used by many forum members, especially the Victory Road Instant Messenger chat system.

PokeRemixStudio – He advertised the forum extensively through his popular YouTube channel and brought in a lot of like-minded individuals.

Shadow – He launched and ran the initial iteration of the Victory Road Gym League, giving us a stable battling community.

Of course, I’d also like to thank everyone who contributed toward the greater good and those who provided quality posts for others to enjoy and converse with. I will never forget many of the wonderful members we’ve had here.

Well friends, the day has arrived. Time to finally say goodbye to our old online stomping grounds Victory Road.

It's been a pretty wild ride to say the least. I've been here since the beginning, and watching our small slice of the internet evolve into a humble little Pokémon hideaway has been a neat journey.

I hadn’t really been part of any online groups prior to being here, aside from lurking or maybe asking a random question. This was my first true experience of getting to interact with people I’ve never met over a common interest. Victory Road started around the time I was getting back into Pokémon after not having been in it since the GameBoy days. It was certainly great to have a group of Pokémon lovers to discuss with and help re-kindle my renewed interest in the series.

Were we as big like the mainstream Pokémon forums? Of course not. We were special because what we lacked in numbers we made up for in community. We weren’t just a faceless number in a crowd, we were practically a family. We knew everyone, we made connections with others just because we liked a game with cute animals. For me personally, it was nice to log onto here and see familiar names to hang out with and discuss about whatever the conversation lead to. Being with others here made me feel like I was a part of something larger. Special connections with people I’ve never even met, technology is incredible!

Of course it wasn’t all fun and games, it came with it’s share of work as well. Kicking spammers, deleting posts, issuing warnings to trouble-makers, it seemed to never end. It was worth it though in order to maintain the peace of our little hideaway. Thanks to the many moderators who have helped out over the years, your service is much appreciated. And of course, a big thanks to my good friend Cat333Pokemon for coming up with this forum and the countless hours of devotion and hard work put into this place.

Well, I'm totally rambling at this point, so I guess I'd better wrap it up... It's been a unique experience, one I'll always remember. I’m going to miss all the friends I’ve made here. I hope enough people stop by one last time to say goodbye as well. If for whatever reason you want to find me and catch up on old times, I can be found on reddit under my new handle Yoshizard64.

Aww man we closing up shop Well i to have moved from Pokezam to here as probably the only member left that originally came from there, its sad to hear this place is going down too.

Well i guess i got to be a gym leader for a short time and git to finally post some of art here, and i better grab my old photos i saved on here as backup.

One last thing for now, are you keeping the pokemon pets thing? I would love to keep using them if i deside to move on to another forum in the future.

My contact stuff:
Twitter @kakashidragon
Facebook- should be kakashidragon if u search it up.
Youtube- kakashidragon (should be this or with 2 at the end)
Discord-kakashidragon#9125
DeviantArt: kakashidragon
Tumblr: kakashidragon

Well, here it is. I can't really say I've been around since the beginning, but it's been a wild four years. Computer's about to auto-restart so I'll keep it brief, but thanks to all the people I've met and Cat for relentlessly sending me comics of Dragonite eating various things and the people who've read my mindless dev blogs and battled with and everything else.

It has been a wild ride on this forum for a while. I remember first joining when there was the chat room. The spam was hilariously funny. (For me, probably not for the moderators.) There were so many memories that I just couldn't count them all! I enjoyed making "fusion-drawings" of Pokemon for people using paint. A lot of you probably thought I was dead when I vanished for 6.5 years. Despite that, I had a nice time learning how to actually play Pokemon. The arcade was fun, the games were easy to play, but hard to master. (Especially the air hockey one.) I wonder what games will be out there next...

this is a great community cat. i met some of my first and closest connections here and changed what i thought about relationships on and off the internet. your site played a role in many kids lives and i thank you for that even if i wasnt mature around the time i actually used the website.

Quite some time has passed since since I joined back in 2011 as a rising junior in high school. I will say that this site caused a big turning point in my life. I didn't exactly have the best experience in high school, so meeting all the people here was refreshing. Being on here not only showed me how to accept others for who they are, but also to accept myself. Not to mention I'm currently living with a certain someone on here that I met 5 years ago. I could make a huge list of who to thank on here...but just believe me when I say thank you- to everyone who played a part in my time being here; you won't be forgotten. :]

Also!
99,999 page visits huh? You all must love me quite a bit to stalk me this much.

Lastly, if I had a closing line here for everyone, it would be this:"Be truthful to yourself and those around you."

I don't think it's even possible for me to put into words how grateful I am for VR. VR pretty much introduced me into the entire concept of online interaction as a kid and served as a huge step towards maturing me into the person I am today. I was definitely obnoxious back when I used this site, but if it weren't for the people I met on this little web forum, I wouldn't have anywhere near the same interests I have now and it would have taken a lot longer for me to gain social perspective and respect than it ended up taking. Seeing all these names again from 7 years ago as a current-day freshman in college is a very emotional thing for me.

I know I haven't been active on here in like 3 years, but it's real sad to see this place go. Looking back at my old posts is the worst kind of time capsule in a good way. When I joined here at the tender age of 11, I really didn't know anything about anything. Coming into the chat and talking for hours, meeting people, and getting exposed to new things was definitely a highlight of my days back then.

What more fitting song for this site than The Time Has Come (Pikachu's Goodbye)?

Yeah, I'm definitely going to miss Victory Road. This place was such an awesome getaway from the doldrums of both my senior year in high school and college life; when I didn't have homework, I'd spend a little time here and chill out with you guys. I also loved sharing with you guys, the awesome tech finds that I acquired over the years. And I felt like you were a family to me.

Thanks again, you guys, and especially Cat333Pokemon, for 6 years of helping shape me into the soon-to-be 31-year-old man that I am today. I have no regrets. My journey on Victory Road has been good. You and I shared many adventures, and those memories will always be with me.

Victory Road, farewell. Who knows? It could be - one day - we will see each other again. I hope so, my friends.

Last edited by Seiji J. Konokama; November 30, 2017 at 07:39:38 PM.
Reason: Altered more of Sir Aaron's quote from "Lucario and the Mystery of Mew"

It's been a while since I've been on. I've made several grand exits, and I figured the next time I came on would be to accept my award for most valued VR member. Haha... doubt that day'll ever come.

Few know me today as the exalted TurtwigX that was responsible for so much merrymaking and rabblerousing. Most know me as Aaqil, that guy that's obsessed with Pokémon and 8-bit music for whatever reason. I figured I do it because I have some strange connection to it. But that connection... is here. I love this place, with all my heart.

It's been a strange 8 years. I don't even remember all of it, I was a middle schooler back then, and now I'm 21 and graduating from college. A lot has changed since then. I basically grew up on this website. I formed many meaningful connections here. I came to terms with my body, my sexuality, my state of being through the interactions on the forums and the ever-contentious chat. I even found myself ways to meet a few of the people that frequented this forum, and some I still talk to on the daily.

Since "leaving" in about 2014 (though I still made posts from time to time) I've managed to compose two albums in FamiTracker, became a music theory expert, learned how to play 16 instruments, started designing my first video game, have done live performances (singing, playing, dancing, whatever), and in general have learned how to love and appreciate life. It's strange to think about, but all these accomplishments are naught but reflections of what my time here was like. If it weren't for the guidance I got from the generous members, I'd probably be some generic dude, probably not interesting, probably not the god of Antimatter I am now... though I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm trying not to cry... I am most certainly on the verge of tears. This website means everything to me. And though I've definitely disconnected from a lot of the people on here, I love you all. With all my heart. I can't imagine a better group of people to have spent my time with. And I hope to see you all at a future date. Or maybe you'll see me. Who knows?

So, what's not sad... jokes! Man, now that this is closing there's no way I'll be able to post about my future marriage on here. I've always wanted to be that dork. And I just wanted to throw a bunch of music on here once I got really famous for it. I love advertising (speaking of which, check out my latest project. It's a banger. https://turtone.bandcamp.com/album/f...nd-even-aliens). And I never even had one of those awkward internet relationships. Who am I gonna date now? REAL PEOPLE? Bleh.

I'm running out of things to say. Plus, I'm exhausted. I really should sleep. But thankfully Algae, if you can remember him, told me about the closure and I had to rush right back on. Victory Road means everything to me, and I would never turn my back on it.

In conclusion, I suppose, keep in touch with me. I'll be active every single day until closing time, so throw me some messages, and make some wacky posts. You guys know I love that stuff. Find out what about me has changed. Find out what about me will NEVER change. Find out what I think of you based on how many HEARTS I give you in my heartfelt farewell messages. But, goodbye is not forever, is what I always say. And as such, I have contact information.
Y'all already know my YouTube channel, so here's some other stuff.
My phone number: Ask me personally for this, and I'll give it to you. I text frequently.
My Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aman.t.abdullah
My school/work email: ama5kk@virginia.edu
My sociable email: fullmetalturtwigX@gmail.com
My Nintendo Switch Friend Code... is a friend code so I don't know what it is ATM. Message me for that too.

Well, that's all I've got. For now. Before closing, expect another song. One specifically for you guys. I love you to the moon and back. With Keldeo swag, Giratina smiles, and the grace of Team PokéHeroSmash.

Well, I can't say I expected I would ever be back here. It has been nearly 4 years since I have logged in! I first came here when I was 15 years old, now I am nearly 21 and graduating from university! When I joined, I was still in secondary school (high school for you folks in the US). This was the first forum I ever joined, and early on I thoroughly enjoyed meeting some of you here.

Seems a bit ridiculous really, feels like yesterday that I was having WiFi battles with people here. And who can forget New Leaf, that game really revolutionised aspects of interaction on this forum. Nowadays, I am not into gaming (or Pokemon) for that matter anymore, but thanks to certain people on here, interacting on video games were some memorable times.

So some thanks are in order? Big up Eagles, Phantom and JD to name a few. Especially Eagles - we still talk daily, and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t know this place is closing. I still keep in contact with a few of those guys, even though I have been out of the forum game for over 3 years now. Also, it is good to see some of the old crowd is round: Turt, Twiggy, and others. It was fun playing with people like GPFTW, AlakazamMaster, Aquablast and Spoon back in day. Man I really miss those times, especially the New Leaf era.

Goodbye VR, I enjoyed the good times while it lasted. I definatley had my fair share of controversy, and I am not surprised to see this place shutdown (it is probably long overdue in all honesty, it’s been dead for years).

Feel free to message me on here, if I know you well maybe I can share some contact details.

- PureAurorae

Last edited by PureAurorae; December 1, 2017 at 06:26:28 AM.
Reason: Added more.

After reading many of your posts, I decided that I also want to, with a heavy heart, say my goodbyes to Victory Road.

I'm going to ramble a bit here, just warning you all:

I was introduced to this site by Reuniclus a little over 4 years ago, right before X and Y came out. That's crazy to me. It really feels like X/Y are still "new Pokemon games."

For those of you who know me, I am a very passionate competitive battler. Despite spending most of my time on pokemon SD, I have always possessed a deep love for that actual Pokemon games as well.

All throughout high school I was always looking to find people that I could share my love of competitive Pokemon, as well as Pokemon in general with. Finally, as a freshman in college, I had found it in Victory Road. A wonderful community filled with a vast spectrum of different individuals sharing the common interest of Pokemon.

I had a blast in the VR Gym League. I had a blast with the Team Lunacy events run by Nytz. I had some of the best times I've ever had on the internet hosting 4 different WiFi tournaments on here. Truly great times.

However, the most enriching experiences I've had on here came through connecting with the community. I have had the great fortune to meet and befriend a large handful of you. Hell, I was even lucky enough to meet 2 people I met on here in real life being Dragonite and PhantomxTrainer. Even for those I didn't get to know as well, you still felt like a second family to me.

I know I haven't been active for over a year, but the amount of nostalgia that this place holds for me is actually pretty crazy. I wish it could just stay here forever so we never had to let go of the past, but that's obviously very selfish of me.

*** One last thing! *** I would genuinely LOVE to stay connected to as many of you as possible. If you have a Discord and would like to reach out to me, my name on there is Matty Brollic #9690 .

Finally, I just want to give a huge thanks to everyone on here. For everyone I got the chance to meet, you've all enhanced my life and I am incredibly grateful for that. I also want to give a HUGE thanks to Cat and Yoshi for creating and maintaining this wonderful Pokemon haven. I don't think words can ever do their efforts justice.

Thank you all; good luck to everyone in all of their future endeavors. I wish you all the best, and with that, I bid you all adieu.

After reading many of your posts, I decided that I also want to, with a heavy heart, say my goodbyes to Victory Road.

I'm going to ramble a bit here, just warning you all:

I was introduced to this site by Reuniclus a little over 4 years ago, right before X and Y came out. That's crazy to me. It really feels like X/Y are still "new Pokemon games."

For those of you who know me, I am a very passionate competitive battler. Despite spending most of my time on pokemon s h o w d o w n, I have always possessed a deep love for that actual Pokemon games as well.

All throughout high school I was always looking to find people that I could share my love of competitive Pokemon, as well as Pokemon in general with. Finally, as a freshman in college, I had found it in Victory Road. A wonderful community filled with a vast spectrum of different individuals sharing the common interest of Pokemon.

I had a blast in the VR Gym League. I had a blast with the Team Lunacy events run by Nytz. I had some of the best times I've ever had on the internet hosting 4 different WiFi tournaments on here. Truly great times.

However, the most enriching experiences I've had on here came through connecting with the community. I have had the great fortune to meet and befriend a large handful of you. Hell, I was even lucky enough to meet 2 people I met on here in real life being Dragonite and PhantomxTrainer. Even for those I didn't get to know as well, you still felt like a second family to me.

I know I haven't been active for over a year, but the amount of nostalgia that this place holds for me is actually pretty crazy. I wish it could just stay here forever so we never had to let go of the past, but that's obviously very selfish of me.

*** One last thing! *** I would genuinely LOVE to stay connected to as many of you as possible. If you have a D i s c o r d and would like to reach out to me, my name on there is Matty Brollic #9690 .

Please don't delete or censor this, Cat.

Finally, I just want to give a huge thanks to everyone on here. For everyone I got the chance to meet, you've all enhanced my life and I am incredibly grateful for that. I also want to give a HUGE thanks to Cat and Yoshi for creating and maintaining this wonderful Pokemon haven. I don't think words can ever do their efforts justice.

Thank you all; good luck to everyone in all of their future endeavors. I wish you all the best, and with that, I bid you all adieu.

And thanka to Matty here, i won my very first and only VR tournament and also got to become a Gym Leader here as well.

I just wanted to pop in and say I will really miss this even if I was active for most of my adult years - starting to regret that. Everyone else here is putting so much effort into their posts; I'll be back with a full essay.

Love you guys. Anyone that'd love to stay in touch, or at the very least have that point of contact open, please message me.

It has been a long time since I last posted on here, but finding this place really helped me feel like part of something in a rough point in my life. I have checked in here every few months since I went inactive, and I am glad I was able to stop in to see this before it was too late. Thank you guys for the good times!

Was gonna say if serebii's forums are still active and still up, after VR closes i'll probably move to there forums as its the only forum i still know password too. So catch me over there if u want, not sure how active i'll be there tho.

All good things come to an end, I guess. It's sad to see it go, but I won't forget the 8.5 years I spent here on and off.
I admit I was an ass during my time here, so yeah uh, sorry.
If anyone wants to talk to me, my twitter is zsaberslash and my discord is zsaberslash#7368.Typical that Lite uses red text in his last post.
Goodbye, Victory Road.

Last edited by zsaberslash; December 31, 2017 at 05:08:50 AM.
Reason: Added a few more words and realised I cant count.

Ah.
Essentially a goodbye thread then.
....Not gonna lie this hurts a fair bit even though I wasn't..well "here". Well, it's definitely been a while regardless and I really did miss you guys. To my surprise one of the few times I dip by its when the journey has come to an end.
But enough about that.
For about 2 years I've been with you guys. It made me feel like apart of something when at the time I really didn't feel like apart of anything. Sharing general interests and a love of Pokemon is warming. Building the friendships here have helped me. I'm 22, 3rd year of College, Finally learned how to adequately play piano, Getting back into drawing, Improving on my writing (god knows after looking at what I wrote here, its DEFINITELY an improvement lol) I'm getting better at Fighting games as well as trying to be a bigger part of its community and playing pokemon all the same.
I guess.....its always at times like these I lose track of what i'm trying to say but

Thank you. All of you.
although I wasn't here for the last leg of the journey. I'm eternally grateful to have made the journey regardless. As Cringy as I've been, as friendly as I've tried to be (and hopefully succeeded in) I cant say I didn't enjoy my time here...I'd be lying if I said otherwise...heck I wouldn't be in my current relationship without this place xD

I guess I should do shoutouts huh.
Cat, Reun, PureAurorae, TurtwigX, Fubab, Spiky, Kakashidragon, Matty, Whimsicott~<3 and a bunch of others here..you all made this experience worth it.

I saw this was happening and decided to log on here for the first time in like 6 years, just wanted to say thanks for being a part of some of my earlier internet memories that I have quite a fondness for now. Despite all my varying interests over time Pokémon has still remained strong in my heart I'm glad to say, and a few folks on here are responsible for making some good memories for me to cherish as a result of that, even in the ancient days of me being a young teenager first becoming social on the internet. Now I'm old somehow and am planning on making a Touhou fangame, crazy how time does that... Stay cool, all of you.

I've been putting off posting this for quite awhile now, but I think it's time to get it out of the way.

It's been eight and a half years since i joined here (wow, has it really been this long?), during a summer of meeting new people in one of Cat's streams and being directed here. I've watched people come and go as the site evolved, changing from one name to another, coming from new games coming out or trying to find a small competitive scene or unfortunately leaving after drama. It happens. It's sad to see a place that I've habitually checked every day, even if I wasn't posting, finally shutting down.

It was an honor heading up the first tournaments that we held here, trying to make sure everything ran smoothly (even though that first one ever was a bit of a wash), and helping the site to try and expand out. It really was fun either trying to put them together myself or trying to help people out with their own ideas.

If you count the remakes, while I've been a part of this community, we've celebrated the launch of seven main series Pokémon games together, and a good handful of spinoffs to go along with them. Each time we'd share our journeys, and work on our own personal projects of each game, be it competitive battling, shiny hunting, or making a living Pokédex, we'd check in and help each other with those challenges.

Pokémon stayed a big part of my life. Personally I believe Victory Road helped out a lot in that. I know I posted awhile back that I started playing the TCG competitively, something that wasn't really talked about on this site a lot. I've gone to regionals and nationals, things that I dreamed of doing in the early days that I was here, and even earlier this year, I traveled to Anaheim and went to the World Championships, though not to compete. Gotta be invited for that. I did however, get to personally meet up with some friends I met here, namely the one I first met in those stream chats long ago, the one and only Lite the Iron Man.

But now it seems our journey has come to an end. I've felt like a ghost a lot, always lurking, but talking to a handful of people regularly as they were still active. I regret not getting to know more of everyone. I'm getting all nostalgic and trying not to cry as I wrap this up. You can still catch me on other places. I do wanna say thank you to you all for being a part of my life, and special thanks to Cat for having this community exist in the first place.
Discord: Ditto616#2777
Battle.net: Ditto#1512
Twitter: @Ditto616
Telegram: @Buddy_Love

The bonds we create between each other will always have lasting effects.

Man oh man this all feels so weird because I spent so much time on this site when I was in High School, this feels so weird since I'm now done with College and am entering a new phase of my life as well. I'm going to have to try to salvage all those Pokemon episode reviews because they're worth looking back at as horrible as they are. I'm still mad at the fact the only tourney I hosted had only one entrant.

I'll never forget the friendships that were formed here and they really mean a lot to me. Thanks for everything especially you Cat for creating this community and giving me an outlet to talk about Pokemon at a point where I had no friends.

You can follow me on Twitter @Magmaster 12
I also spend a lot of time now on Toonzone.net as well.

It'll be sad to see this place go. I spend so much time chatting with people while I was in school. I lived in a rural area at the time, and VR helped me find friends of common interest. I wish I would of been more active after I got out of school, but life got in the way. It's funny how life gets in the way of living.

I was 12 years old (and homeschooled) when I joined VR, so this site really formed me through my early teens more than anything else in my life. Hell, I made my best friends at the time here (and one who was a little more than that, but I don't know how public that was so I'm not going to go into detail about it). And even though I've disappeared from the site a few times, I don't forget. I still have a few plushies specifically based on members of VR sitting right by my bedside:

i wasnt sure if i was gonna make a post here cause i loathe this username but im feeling reminiscent and rambley so ill say a few things

i joined way back in 2009 as a twelve year old babby. my time on the internet back then was especially fraught with anxiety cause i was a kid with asd and adults on the internet like making fun of / cussing at anyone who makes the slightest missteps. the first forum i joined had a few people like that, but i liked my time in cats streams so i figured id hang out here too. i dont know that i really appreciated it at the time, but the people here were just.. so much nicer and more accepting than the other online communities i had joined.

i distinctly remember one morning drawing a goofy ms paint fan pokemon and making a thread about it. the only reply i saw it get before i had to leave for school was some nasty dude making fun of me, and when i got back home i was kinda anxious as to what other replies i might have gotten. to my surprise that first gross reply was gone and there were five or six kind ones in its place, including one from a certain feline admin.

i also remember leaving for three months (dont remember why,) and coming back kinda nonchalantly and also anxious. again to my surprise, people not only recognized me, but seemed excited to see me again. and for over the next nine months i made my first online friends and felt unusually... likeable. like, i had friends at school before, but i guess this was the first time i felt ... idk, special. like ppl looked up to me, at least a little bit. idk if they actually did, but it was a very empowering feeling

i got pretty *****y the next year, in spite of a surprising amount of cooperation and respect from people i was pretty much bullying. i think looking back, regardless of the reasons my friends were acting the way they were, and whether or not they were good reasons.. i think the only reason i went along with it was that same craving for acceptance. not that i didnt revel in being a dick, but.. i dont think i would have even considered it if it didnt look like “the thing to do if you want to be cool”

we all changed a lot over the next few years. im not as close to them now as i was back then, but that friendship meant a lot to me. it still does. they were the first people i felt really comfortable showing my real, broken, depressed self to.

and then theres now. i honestly never considered that this place might cease to exist some day, even as i noticed activity dwindling. in a sense ill miss it, but in another sense i really wanna put my past behind me. i guess ill just leave with, thanks. thanks for it being here, and being what it was. and thanks for everyone i knew being here, and being who they were.

here is a link to my old Youtube channel with some VR Chatbox videos, video from our Minecraft server, memes, and a terrible cover of the Pokemon theme song. you'll probably cringe a ton, I did too, but it's some good cringe. cheers

Since my previous post, I think I have found the perfect song that depicts my emotions toward the closure of Victory Road. If you've been watching various 3D rendered MLP videos, you may recognize the song.

I began my journey when I was 24 years old, and at that time, I borrowed elements of Castle Valet Darach from the Battle Frontier in Pokemon Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver, because I loved battling against Darach and Lady Caitlin, the latter of whom I looked forward to battling when I bought Pokemon Black. I decided to move away from having a human as my online persona when I found out about the furry fandom, and it was then that I decided that being an anthropomorphic fox would be my best move, while still retaining the noble persona from my days as Darach.

Thanks again, Cat, for everything you've done. I will definitely miss this place.

Man, it's sad to see this place go. Victory Road was a huge part of my early teen years, and even when things started slowing down and I didn't post much, I always kept a tab open here. It's going to be weird not having that up anymore.

Thanks Cat for creating such a great community. I'll never forget this place.

If anyone wants to keep in contact with me, my Discord username is UnironicallyEnthusiasticKnitter#1485 , though I'm not all that great at keeping up conversation anymore.

It is sad that the forum is closing down. I may not have been active here since the end of 2012, but VictoryRoad was the first community that I was active on and it inspired me to create my own forum.

I do want to tell everyone that I was sorry for my past actions on the forums. I got ban here several times during the first year that I was here. I am not the same person anymore, and I hope you all forgive me.

I was diagnosed with both Autism and ADD at a young age. I was not on medicine until 2013, and the medicine have helped me improve my life a lot. My grade skyrocketed during my High School Sophomore year, and I graduated High School in 2015 being 13th in my class of 170. I got my Associate Degree in Business Administration in May, and working on my Bachelor's Degree. I got a 4.0 this Fall taking 15 credits.

I will miss this place, and hope to still be friends with you guys. Thank you everyone for everything!

*To start things off, i figured i'd post this now so everyone gets a chance to see it*

Well guys it was a fun ride while it lasted, really hate to see this place go, but with Pokezam been gone (my first fourm i made home) and the soon to be remembered VictoryRoad, i dont know where to go next. Message boards are kinda dying and only a few that remain see much activity than what we have now, but seems everyone is on Social media apps nowadays (like Amino and Discord), but VR wad a place that i liked to check in once inawhile to see what was new and stuff, I will really miss this place.

But yeah if u really want to chat with me or follow me/my art stuff, please find in the sites in my Signature below if u so desire as im most active there (I got Facebook to, just search my username), But if u wanna follow my art, i frequent Devianart and Tumblr the most.

But i will check in everyday till we can no longer login to see if u guys reply to this in the next few days we have left. Peace out peeps! 😚✌👍🏻💪🏻👊🏻🤘🏻 Till we meet again somewhere.

Well I've only made 20 posts according to my profile, but I know that endings are always sad. I never really posted cause I was always kind of intimidated. But that's my problem and my bad lol. Good luck to you all, if it means anything!

Oh. Well, hello there. It's certainly been a while since I was last here.

VR was one of the first communities I was a part of in my time online. I was happy to call this place home, and I made a great number of friends here. Of course, the years haven't been kind to a lot of those friendships, and frankly I don't remember a lot of you. I'm sure you were all good people back then.

Anyway, it's sad to see this place go, even if I did forget about it for about three years. (Seriously, I'd completely forgotten about this place. Someone PM'd me on Tumblr about its closure, whic is ironically another place I've mostly abandoned.)

If you're interested in keeping up with what I do nowadays, you'll be pleased to hear I have both Twitter and Discord to keep in touch with. My Twitter is Vel_Sparko and my Discord is VelSparko#9762.
Alright, uh, I guess that's really all there is to say. It's been fun. Farewell!

(I've been planning on writing something for about 3 weeks or so, but never got the right motivation. No better time to do something than the present, right?)

I can't say I was surprised when I saw the announcement of the forum's closure, although I was still sad to know this was going to happen. I joined Victory Road during a time in my life when I was looking for solid community, since I didn't find anything close at the time in junior high. Today, just about every trace of those communities (a few small Minecraft servers and general forums) are long gone, so in a way, this completely closes that chapter of my life.

I realize that this forum has effectively been dead for a fair while, and this account has been dead for longer (I haven't posted since 2015, and not consistently since 2014), but I will still remember and cherish the good times here before that. In particular, I'll remember my short stint as a gym leader in the VRGL, my attempts to take records off of people in the Arcade to get those sweet trophies next to my name, and all of the moments on VRIM, which consumed my 2012 summer and continued to be something I'd look forward to being on until it closed shortly afterwards.

Overall, I'm grateful to have been a part of this community, even if I can't recall what caused me to come here in the first place. It was great to meet people in a time when I struggled and it was fun to get together whenever we could to play MK7, MKWii, Smash Brawl and 4, fight in Pokemon B&W, or just sit around and talk about whatever. I have so many memories here that I never had to heart to change my homepage. I also found a lot of great people here, and while I never kept in touch after I stopped posting, my experiences with them helped me to build the groups I have around me today as a college sophomore.

It's time to move on to bigger and better things. Thanks for everything y'all have given me, and I hope I can keep in contact with at least some of you in the future (just tell me you're from VR!). (Methods of contact are in my signature.)

Wow it's been forever since I logged in Victory road. I first got in the forum because I was looking for an active Pokemon community that is knit close. I mainly join for that and for SSBB tournament. I was 16 back then where what I worry the most is passing extra time and getting into colleges. It feels strange that time went by really fast. I was active here for a few years and then I lost interest over time due to college, real life, and my reborn interest in Yugioh.

Now I'm 24 years old, graduated college with Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Psychology, and trying to find my place in the world. My passion lies in education and helping people who struggle due to social background, class, and barriers that society puts to prevent students from pursuing education and their dreams. I'm currently trying to move up to a position where I can make a big difference and influence students.

Most of the forum I joined are long gone or are closed and I'm sad to see this forum close. I know it's life, but still I can't help but remember the memories I have in my high school and the fun I have in forum.

So this is a goodbye. I'm glad that I can log in for the last time to say goodbye. I have move on to other bigger and better things. I feel that I'm different person now from my 16 year old self. Regardless, what hasn't changed is my love video games, Pokemon, and Yugioh.

I know that most of the people I know are gone and people change, but here are a few sites I am in in case you want to contact. Just please tell me that you are from VR.

Take care everyone. Best of luck of pursuing your interests.

steam: Ruby keys

tumblr: Silverwindsblog

reddit: 50McCele

dA: Kirby-Chan42 (I use the site for hoarding art and my otp. I'm not an artist.) This is the site you can chat with me if any of the 3 sites don't work for you or if dA is your preference for communication.

I'm more active in tumblr, but I'm taking a short from the website and will be back in tumblr next week.

I've just had an interesting trip down memory lane. (It's a shame I have such a poor memory, but nice that my experiences were archived here so I could remember my past self!) I know I was only really around for about six months, but in spite of that and my innate shyness, I still managed to meet and talk to quite a few people it seems! It's also interesting to see how much I've changed and grown up since 2012, which is when I was active. Has it really been about five years?

I'd like to say thanks to everyone here, as you all welcomed me to the community with open arms and hearts. I wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

If anyone's interested in catching up, you can always find me under this username elsewhere.

hello y'all i just got in touch with cat with some REAL good timing so now i can squeeze in a farewell post :'-)

anyway i don't know if i can compose a whole other thing after writing a heartfelt email so i'll just paste it here

Quote:

hello this is forum user "piexing"...i deleted my old email account so i can't reset my password & i wanted to get in touch sooner and ask you to change it on the back end or something so that i could make a proper post but whoops i forgot

just wanted to give a shout out and tell ya i haven't forgotten about the place i spent my most formative time online. and yknow thanks for running it

anyway peace out, RIP victory road, it was the site of many real good times and it will live on forever in our memories :'-)

(perhaps you could put this up on my behalf if there's time? if there is then i wanna give a quick "xing" (some classic vrc parlance for ya...) to all the folks who put up with me when i was at my most annoying. lol)

We're no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of
You wouldn't get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

We've known each other for so long
Your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it

And if you ask me how I'm feeling
Don't tell me you're too blind to see

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

Never gonna give, never gonna give
(Give you up)
(Ooh) Never gonna give, never gonna give
(Give you up)

We've known each other for so long
Your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it

I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry

We're getting ready to flip the switch here, so I'm going to squeeze in one last post.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to share their memories of this place. It was heartwarming to read all of your stories about the good times you've had here and how your experiences helped you grow into the people you are today.

Thank you, everyone, for your final words and giving us a great send-off to the website where I dedicated much of my later high school and especially college years. This place will always be special to me, and I will remember it for the rest of my life.

I know I said I'd be stopping logins on February 1, but I wanted to expedite the archival, and the only reason for delaying that was access to private messages. If you wish to receive a copy of your PMs or if you'd like to request removal of any private information from your profile before the archival, please send me an e-mail at cat333pokemon@aol.com.